Sheriff Paul Babeu Misleads On National Guard Border Withdrawal

December 15, 2011 10:31 am ET —
Salvatore Colleluori

Tuesday night on Follow the
Money, Eric Bolling hosted Pinal County (AZ) Sheriff Paul Babeu to
discuss an Obama administration proposal to reduce the number of National Guard
troops on the U.S.-Mexico border from its current 1,200 to an undisclosed
number. According to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), that reduction would leave
only
14 National Guard troops for the California-Mexico border. Babeu claimed
that "President Obama is crying poor mouth" — that he's shirking his duty on
"enforcing the rule of law and protecting America" for financial reasons.

BOLLING: The Obama Administration could leave the U.S.- Mexico
border more vulnerable than ever before. New
proposed cuts leave just 14 — one-four — 14 National Guardsmen on the
California border. Joining me now, border warrior Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Sheriff, we heard the news today that there is going to be — likely going to be
cuts starting in 2012 that would leave California with just 14 border patrol
agents for the whole length of their border with Mexico.

BABEU: Right, and get this,
that President Obama is crying poor
mouth saying that, well we don't have the money. Well, when did he start this? Because
that's never been a reason for him not to spend money in every other area of the
government and in stimulus and when it comes to, not only border security and
enforcing the rule of law and protecting America, here, in our own country, now
the president claims this, according to Duncan Hunter, the good congressman
from San Diego.

Watch:

It's disingenuous for Babeu to attack Obama over border
security spending. In fact, the Obama administration has increased
spending on border protection and enforcement and has doubled
the number of border patrol agents since 2004. And attacking President Obama
for decreasing National Guard troops also misrepresents the situation. As the Huffington Post explains, the National
Guard deployment was only
supposed to last for a year, and was already extended once by the president:

President Barack Obama ordered the troops to the border
last year to help Border Patrol agents watch for illegal crossers and drug and
human smugglers. The first of the 1,200 troops arrived in California, Arizona,
New Mexico and Texas in August 2010, and were
expected to be in place for about a year. Earlier this year, Obama extended
that deployment.

The Guard troops don't have arrest power and have spent
much of their time monitoring the 2,000-mile border and alerting Border Patrol
agents to suspicious activity. The
deployment was to have ended at the end of the year.

Instead of totally
getting rid of all the National Guard troops — as was originally intended — the Obama
administration is reportedly proposing to remove a portion of them and shift the remaining
troops to "focus their efforts on aerial surveillance." The National Guard troops were always supposed to be a temporary
measure to "be a bridge to beef up support staffing while the Border
Patrol hired more agents," and according to the Houston Chronicle, the "Pentagon
has long sought to end the roughly $10 million-a-month National Guard ground
operation."

It's clear that Babeu is just looking for a quick way to claim
Obama is soft on immigration — a claim that the evidence refutes. But we
shouldn't be surprised: Exaggerations and false claims are
standard for Babeu.